Oh, life is bigger, it's bigger than you and you are not me The links that I will go to The distance in your eyes Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. My name is Alan, your host of the show, one of the owners of Wedgehead, a pinball bar in Portland, Oregon. And I'm joined today with my co-host, AJ of Colorado. How you doing, AJ? Good, good. Excited to have you on the show, but is there anything you need to plug before we get started? Let's plug the coffee. Show your support to the show. go into ko-fi.com slash wedgehead podcast and throw a few dollars come chop it up in the discord with us you get a harass alan you get a harass alex and the rest of the amazing people in there come talk about like some random bullshit like my pizza like like the worst chicago having the worst pizza yeah it's all in the discord it's all good stuff it's all a good time and aj's in there all the time i should probably be working yeah well that's that's the respite from work is the discord it's just a little it's a little tasty break you know it's like a little digital cigarette but listeners will probably be wondering my normal co-host alex the water boy he's not here today because he's out sick so i have enlisted the co-hosting services for this episode of my buddy aj he is the owner operator flip a coin which is a mostly pinball arcade in the basement of the bite Me Cake Company in Pueblo, Colorado. AJ, you may recall, longtime listeners, was a previous guest on the show for episodes 39 and 40, where we discussed him in an operator spotlight series, and then he died on the hill for Data Ease Hook alongside myself. He's very active in our Discord server, and he's ready to share more operator stories in there for anyone that donates to the show. But today, we're going to have a little bit of a surprising discussion about operating modern pinball machines, and I think this will be an episode that will offer a different perspective than is typical so let's talk about operating modern games on location discuss what the narrative usually is what our actual experiences are why we buy and operate new games and why new games maybe aren't always the no-brainer cash cows that some people like to pretend that they are so let's start with the business side aj let's do this i think that the prevailing narrative out there and the reason why we wanted to do this episode is that modern games will always out-earn older games, particularly Sterns, but also occasionally games like Harry Potter or reports about Evil Dead doing good numbers. I just wanted to talk to you. I know you and I talk a lot, but how do you feel about this, AJ? Do all new games earn well? No, not at all. No. I think you'll have a new game do well just because it's new. So a flashy new toy brings people in, your players that are in the know. so you have a game come in it does well and then it eventually will fall off everything falls off but i don't think new games i don't know man that's a tough one why do you think this is such a common refrain though like you hear it everywhere honestly i think it's because that's what people see that's what so like um i think theme is a lot of it to be honest with you people see and they recognize because they see it on TV or whatever. With that being said, I think with new games, that's what's out there more because more people are getting into operating. So it's easy to go out and buy a Dungeons and Dragons, easy to buy Metallica, you know, because they remade it. It's easy to go buy these games where, like, say I want a specific game. I'm in the basement right now. Let me see. Let's say Indiana Jones. Okay, Williams, Indiana Jones. Sometimes you have to go out and search for them. So it's not as easy to get. Yeah. And everything in this world is now easier. Everything's easier, you know, for the new stuff. And I think that's a lot of it. So you're saying just it being out on location is sort of coloring the perception that these games are out on location because they just simply do better. You're like, really, it's just easier to get them and easier to just buy a machine and then put that new machine out on location. Yeah, 100%. I don't disagree with that either. I do think that there's lots of factors as to why we're seeing newer games, and I think that's just one of them. But I do think it's certainly easier to buy a game that's being produced right now than it is to hunt down a game in good condition near you for a fair price when you want a certain title. You've been collecting games a long time. You've been operating a while. My business partner's been operating 20 years, and it's just sort of like he buys a lot of his games just because they were available. It's not like he was looking for his Indiana Jones. It's just an Indiana Jones came up near him and he was able to go get one. You know what I mean? So yeah, it's a way different thing than when you're like, oh, am I deciding between buying a Jaws or a King Kong? You know, like I can get either versus when you're buying used. It's just sort of like, well, this is what's available. This is out there. Like I could go get this. Yeah, I see that. The real question is people make it seem like the new games always earn really well. Like you see this in some operator groups and all that kind of stuff. My thing is, is a lot of operators don't operate classics. So, and by classics, I mean games that are, I don't know, say pre LCD, pre LCD. Yeah. Like say like 15 years or older. Do they even really have a good grasp on whether or not those games can earn? Cause if you're not operating them, how would you know they earn? If you want my honest opinion on that? I don't think they can. I don't think they can operate those just because it takes a little bit different work. I'm not going to say more work. I'm going to say different work. Do you think older games can earn on location? Yeah, 100%. No doubt there. Why do you think people think that they can't? I think it's because of like what we're kind of talking about. They either haven't tried it. They don't know. You know, I think listening to other podcasts or watching YouTube videos, it gets pumped so hard that this new Stern, this new Spooky, you know, insert whatever here, is so good. But they don't want to give another, like a Value Williams, a try. They don't want to give anything else a try. I didn't do EMs. You got me into EMs. And how many, I mean, we have a bunch of them now. Yeah. I stuff, I toxic solid states. It's like, just try it. You don't have to have all new Sterns. I know Stern's going to be the big thing in this episode, but a location doesn't need to be all Sterns. Totally. But I don't think people are willing to try it. And I don't know if it's because they can't or they just listen. It's a hive mind. You know what I mean? I think it's, you know, new games have their place and we'll talk about it throughout this episode. And I think it's important that we have manufacturers making new games for lots of reasons. And I think it's great that people like the new games as well, for the most part. But what I find interesting is that I run a location and we have a mix of all eras. Actually, our locations are very similar in the types of mixes of games that we have, even sort of the size. I think you've got a few more games than we do on the floor at any time, but roughly like about 30-ish games, games of all eras. And so we're running similar things and I think we see similar things. And it's funny to hear from other operators that just pump one thing. And what I see is completely different. What I see is people get excited when we bring a new EM in. People are excited when we bring a new solid state in. People play the hell out of our frontier. I mean, our frontier is probably one of our most played games on the floor. Really? Not even close. It gets played all the time. Big game gets played all the time. Archita gets played all the time. Part of that, I think, is like with the classics, maybe you have to cultivate the audience or something. but my argument is like they're out there man there are people out there that like these games so yeah you're doing yourself a disservice as being an operator not considering these old games it's all variety absolutely so i agree i do think you you can make solid states earn we don't do coin drop anymore again but we do one game of the month that's on coin drop and i've spoken about it on the show but we did a stars at 25 cents a play and that thing earned crazy money that game of the month that's a steal you know and it was hard yeah it was hard as hell it's because it's stars but but everyone thought but everyone liked it dude it's got anytime you rip the spinners and you hear the chimes like people like that game inherently like it's really not a hard game to get really anybody to like people that don't play pinball people that do play pinball i think we need to talk more about that's what i try to do on the show that's like i want to talk more about how these other games can earn you know it's not that oh you have these classics like but they won't get played that's not true right they will get played you know and i'm not saying that it's a smart business idea to only go in the same way that i don't think it's smart to have a row of sterns from the last five years and that's it i don't think that's the best way to do it either i think any lineup no matter what the size is it's very beneficial to have some variety whether that's williams games from the 90s bally games from the 80s or even ems or whatever it is or a couple boutiques or a jjp game mixed along a stern or something like that like there are markets for all those games and you're a stronger location just for having variety well any game's gonna get played you have it out there it's gonna get played either if it's one play or you know a thousand it's it's gonna get played no matter what it is mixing it up i mean it's like it's just a visual thing it's true you know and there are pinball players that like certain things right like like i'm one of those players i know you're one of those players it's like we're really happy you know pre-95 or something you know or maybe even like 1990 like we were like we're very happy with games before that time so for me and i think for you it's like when we travel it's like we're looking for places like that that's gonna prick my antenna up i'm gonna be like oh well this is a spot i need to visit well we've chatted about that you know on the side looking at places that have all le's or you know matter no matter what the manufacturer is but having just all they have is new games i'm more likely going to pass that up to go look for the place that has i don't know mousing around yeah yeah totally those oddball games yeah a game that that's interesting and you want to go play oh this place has genesis yeah i'm going there absolutely absolutely some newer games and you alluded to it especially sterns are generally thought to be more reliable you know than buying a classic do you find this to be true as compared to running older games you know because i hear this often i hear that older games are too hard to maintain as a justification for buying only new games no not at all i think sterns are reliable because they're new but i mean how many have you had that you've had to open up out of the box adjust do certain little things i mean every time we get a new stern in the first thing i do the first night is pretty much almost rebuild. You put a new coil stop, you put new, the coil stop bolts in, like right away. Oh yeah, those old school bolts are bad. The first night we get them, that's what we do. But we have a different situation than a lot of, say, homeowners or something, you know, because we're going to get more play with those games. And I'm not saying other manufacturers don't because I've already had to rebuild a couple parts on Dune. But I mean, that game's been played nonstop since we put it in. So, I mean, sterns are reliable, but anything can be reliable if you maintain it. I mean, that's just that's a life saying, you know, like if you maintain your car, it's going to be more reliable. It doesn't matter how old it is. It's going to be reliable. Your job is you're you run an auto body shop, so you're a car guy. So you understand the similarities between the two. And I do agree that like just like car brands, there are certain brands in certain models over certain years that have, say, more reliability or less reliability. But in general speaking, like a commercial pinball machine is just a thing that's going to break and require maintenance. And as long as you maintain it, it should work. I've actually found that, honestly, in the modern day, especially that early solid state era that we both love with new boards and shit that are available now. Fucking easy to run. Yeah. Other than cleaning, almost maintenance free. You'd never touch them. Yeah. Crazy, dude. they are so reliable but even go up to like system 11s like i don't know i don't touch system 11s like they don't break yeah that's it like they're still going strong and that's damn you're 40 years later you know yeah i think it's funny because it's like i hear that and i and i'm just like you like i agree that sterns are reliable that's why we buy them i think they make a solid product especially at the price point and players like them for the most part but i think it's weird when it becomes Stern's the only company that makes a reliable game, you know, or something like that. Or they're viewing like an old pinball machine is having an old car. And I'm not sure that that's 100% the case. Yes, when you get an old game, it may be in a state of neglect where you need to put more time into it to make it reliable. But like I said, in the modern era, pinball's becoming more popular again slowly too slowly for for my taste but it's still getting better than 20 years ago when i first got into the hobby it's nice to see that people are out there making like replacement boards so you as the buyer operator can always go do i want to dive into this board work learn or send it out or i could just buy a new board well depending on what it is especially like if it's a valley stern like a the classic classic stern classic Bally you just call up andrew at pinball electronics have them get you boards i mean you're you're rolling after that like why are you messing with all this old stuff just put the new ones in you're gonna go so i think they can be and in my personal experience those games are like really reliable the most reliable now they don't have a ton of mechs usually or a ton of bespoke mechs so maybe that's a big part of why but i think that there's a weird thing where i feel like i hear it the idea is like i don't know if i want a paragon because i don't know if it'll work and i think that that's not true or a stars or a cheetah or you know whatever and in my experience really not hard to run like i said we have a frontier that gets a shitload of plays we have a big game that gets a shitload of plays that's our meteor our meteor just gets played non-stop and it just takes a beating and keeps going honestly the older games can be less maintenance but if you've only ever worked on modern games like i can get being skittish or something but what's the difference in rebuilding a flipper on an older game than rebuilding a flipper on a newer game not much i mean the pieces are slightly different but it the same concept i mean it literally the same thing pop bumpers pop bumpers haven changed at all yes you still have to rebuild them They still the same thing Yep You know slings It all the same stuff So there's no difference in what you're fixing. It's just parts are newer. And, I mean, even if you go into that, you have your other manufacturer, you're like your boutique manufacturers. It's still the same stuff. Yeah, and most of the boutique manufacturers are all using old Williams parts for the majority of their parts. so parts availability is available and it's cheap you know the williams parts are much cheaper than the stern parts are you could rebuild i think two williams flippers for 40 45 50 maybe yeah you know it's and it's it's literally the same parts just a little little design different but you know that's what makes a manufacturer manufacturer we talked about older games we talked about newer games a little bit but what makes you buy a new game because you do buy new games you buy new games every single year and you put them in your arcade what is the value in having new games to you i think it's just keeping a fresh lineup you know people are like we've talked about are looking for the new games they like the new games and that's okay new games you know people are into that owning a business owning a location just said you have to keep things fresh and i think that's you like new games like you know especially like where we're at we're in a small town of 100,000 people you know we were competing with denver that's millions you know even though it's 120 mile difference you still feel that like if a new game comes out we have players that are more likely going to be like yeah we're just going to go play up there if i if you don't have it and that's fine you know like go like i i love going other locations well and you're not necessarily going to buy every single game so certain games you're going to you're going to pass on and you're going to be like go up to denver and play that game and then come back and then play my games picking and choosing especially when you're a smaller place is it's a big decision like we didn't get like last minute we chose to not get the new star wars i'm not saying i regret that but at the same time it's like i kind of i listen to my players a little bit the ones that play they're like nah it's not where it's at you know like we have a steve wars and they're like yeah this one's way better i'm like okay cool you know like thank you for the feedback on that we didn't do metallica we didn't do walking dead we had walking dead in the past and i had it once i don't i don't i don't want the new one i would search out the old one if i was in a pro not a premium we have the remastered and uh it does all right but there's a split on that game especially between the pro and premium that's one of those games that has a strong reaction amongst players between preferring the pro over the premium so and with the remaster you only get the premium so yeah it's mainly to do with the crossbow they did you know it is like this versus the old school premium the bicycle girl ramp does feel much better i know that was a complaint from the last one too you know i i'm with you like i like the pro i like the original game but uh pros the original pros great we buy a lot of new games obviously we or roads buys i should say every new stern game because he still runs a big route and then he has wedgehead which we're partners in it's understandable Yeah, he's got places to new locations. Players want to play a new game when it comes out. You know, the whole media landscape is just pushing people into a hyped frenzy for the brand new game. You know, we're hobbyist. Anytime you're in a hobby and new product drops, excitement's at an all time high. We skipped Sterns, but we did get Dune. We did get Harry Potter. I mean, look at the like if you go to the price tag, MSRP price tags on those. That's two games that you could literally buy for three Stern pros. Yeah, I want to talk to you about that, because in addition to Sterns, you operate Labyrinth, Dune, Harry Potter. Like you said, they all cost substantially more than a Stern Pro, which is kind of standard pinball operator game. And from what you shared before with me, all three of those games have earned extremely well for you, often out-earning some high-profile Stern games that you bought that underperformed. So these other games can earn well, but they cost a lot more. So my question to you for the show is, do you think they're worth it to operate, in your opinion, as a business decision? Is the ROI still there even after the higher initial purchase cost? Oh, man, that's a tough one. I can't tell you the last time doing audits and stuff that a new Stern was in the top five. Oh, wow. It's been months. What's the last great earning Stern you had? D&D, maybe? Yeah, D&D does well for us, too. I'm trying to think of the last new stream that we had, to be honest with you. I think it was Kong. Yeah, it fell on its face. That game was, you know how I feel about LWM games. No, but I mean, share it with the show because we know each other, but it's like. Yeah, I know. I don't want people to like send hate mail. We're going to come to your house and burn it down. Well, I think this is very interesting, AJ, because I do think amongst, again, pinheads, where it's like the majority of pinheads revere Keith Elwin and his games, and they're very popular. Amazing designer. But it doesn't mean necessarily that they all earn really well. You know, just because they're well-respected maybe doesn't necessarily translate to big earnings for every operator. But you're hearing that these games are just crushing it. And I'm like, dude, I haven't had a new Elwynn besides Godzilla that's earned shit. Yeah, your Jaws did bad, you said, right? Jaws was horrible. Kong, horrible. JP, Jurassic Park, like you said, that's a whole other story. It did okay. It took a while to get there. But that game's trash. I don't care what anybody says. That's a die on this hill for another time. I mean, Godzilla, I mean, it's a good game. I'm not going to say it's not a good game. It's just so overrated. It's ridiculous. But at least it earns, right? You know, it does fine. That's it. It's average. I think that I have WPCs doing what it does, if not more consistently every month. No problem. Easy. But yeah, Kong, I think was the last new stream that we had. Trash. There's very few players that were like, oh, that game's good. Then you look at them. They're like, yeah, it's just all right. And I'm like, dude, just tell me the truth. but when you get labyrinth and then you get dune and you get harry potter and all three of these games earn really well i'm assuming your players are saying that they really like these games but they they cost you more money but they earn more so is that value worth it to you would you do it all again it's all the same in the end it's all i mean you have when you're buying games like let's say even um like bally williams dmds when you're when you're paying 10 grand for a game it's going to take forever to pay off especially if you like if you're doing a coin drop you have a game like um let's say well like you're indiana jones right like that's an expensive game like you're you're never gonna it's you're you have it because you want it where i think like like buying like labyrinth labyrinth it's it's not going to make its money back i'm not expecting it to but that game ripped so hard dune same thing with dune dune was more expensive than labyrinth and i'm never gonna expect dune to make its money back and that's okay i don't i don't care about that i'm doing it because i want that game i like that game like that's hands down one of the best games made in years i think oh yeah i agree i think probably agree with that i think dune is the best game from any manufacturer in at least five years if not longer easy easy it's an incredible game you know harry potter i know it's not everybody's thing you know it's a it's a touchy subject but i don't care what anybody says that game is just earning like crazy is it a great game no it's not it's it's it's okay it's a game you know any game's a game but it's the theme i mean people don't care about jjp's you know ugly light show and it's actually a pretty good light show But, you know, it doesn't match their games, but people gravitate toward it. It's like theater magic. How many people just gravitate towards theater magic? Yeah, I agree. It has the same, how would you say, same cadence as that. You know, people just gravitate towards it just because it's what it is. Doing what they did with that, being the arcade, the wizard, and then the CE, they gave options. They made an option for a more affordable game for the arcades, you know. We like the Harry Potter franchise. We don't like what the writer stands for, but that's separate the art from artist type thing. It's a fine game, but it gets tons of plays. There's always somebody playing it, always, where I could see, I'd say, Dune, Harry Potter, Labyrinth, and we'll throw another one, Pulp Fiction, CGC. Those games are always being played, always. in a room full of games those games get played and they're not sterns which is interesting because sterns are considered by most players to be kind of the top top tier games or i could tell you those four are consistently top four earning games always always top five speaking of stern then stern has this thing called insider connected i'm sure you've heard of it and i'm sure the listener has heard of it how do you feel like it's impacted operating games and do you think it makes the games more interesting to the majority of your players do you feel like it increases your earnings what do you think about it so insider connect was a slippery slope for me when it first came out i was like oh hell no like this is bullshit a good friend of mine runs pin quest the pin quest app which is super awesome app but it was sort of what he was doing before the Interconnect came out. Right. So when Interconnect came out, I was like, oh, this is, you know, no. And then one of my distributors, my Stern distributor, was like, dude, you've got to get on Interconnect. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do it. He's like, yes, you are. You have to do it. Trust me on this. You're missing out. And I fought it for a while, and then I think Godzilla was the first game that we got Interconnect on, and it changed everything. Like I will be the first person to tell you I'm dumb for not listening to everybody. Because it helped out like our earnings. It helped out everything so much. And, you know, like we put monthly leaderboards up. Like people get stoked on that. Like they're like, God, this is my name on the TV. Beat that score. And you see like people like groups of friends come in and they're like, yeah, check this out. I'm number five. They're like, oh, no, watch this. And they're like, oh, man, I almost got you. So it's, I mean, it's helped out a lot. I think with some more polish on it, Stern has something really good going on there. I think taking home leaderboards kind of hurt it because that's one thing that was for the locations and it kind of got taken back. So that's, you know. That brings me to my next question is, do you think any of the modern manufacturers care about operators and either the profitability or serviceability of their games on location? Oh, how do you feel about that? I don't think they care that much. I don't think they care either. I think people that work for them care, but I don't think the manufacturers or the people head of the manufacturers give two shits. And I don't mean like they don't care about the games they're making or making good games. They're on location or not. Yeah. Like, I just mean, like, I don't think that when I speak to a manufacturer, they care that these scoop switches in these Stern games are trash. You should redesign this so they're more reliable or something or something or like, what happened to my fucking service outlet? That's some bullshit. Right? Yeah. Or like, you know, like, why are the Wi-Fi cards, the Insider Games, so bad, you know, and pop off the Internet for the Insider Connected and stuff like that? And, you know, like, I think that it really doesn't manifest itself in a big way in a home collection. So they don't really care about our experience as much. as well i think if i can i name drop sure you know like michael grant from stern absolutely amazing like he takes care of locations like he's making sure like you have what you need you know like he's an amazing person but he's not stern he just works for stern yeah he's head of the army right the stern army yeah but he's like he he he helps locations he pushes like amazing you know he's not stern does stern like go up to the the head do they really care about locations anymore because they're selling games to homeowners you know like why if you cared about locations why did we make the change in the last you know say year where unless you buy le you don't get your game first where before it was you got your game then the le's came out with a little bit of you know like let's say polish or a little bit of r&d yeah i'd say r&d we lost that then you have other like boutique manufacturers you're just a number it doesn't matter if you're a location or not for the most part you're just a number if i ordered you know 20 spots after chad in his basement you know it doesn't matter he's gonna get his game and he's gonna put two plays on it yeah totally they're not prioritizing getting the new game on location for more people to play it you And some are, we sort of did, but Barrels has been great for the most part. David David Van Es is absolutely amazing. But at the end of the day, nobody cares if you're a location or not. You know, I don't know what Spooky does because we don't spooky around here. You know, CGC don't care. No. Yeah, I agree. But Stern's, I will give Stern credit on that. Stern's the only one that does have at least a program. They have people in place. they are whether or not i agree with everything they're doing or feel like the outreach could be better i think that they they are at least for now making a pro model that is priced reasonably to potentially pay itself off through coin drop whereas the other games you start getting into that thing where you're like man 10 12 14 grand like these are not easily paid off like really not even a stern pro is not easily paid off but well at least how many price increases they've been in the past four years it is gonna it's probably gonna get another one this year i imagine i would think not that i want it but you know it's it is what it is everything's getting expensive that brings up another question i have for you which is a little critical you and i as operators but it's like what would you like to see from new game manufacturers in regards to location play how do you feel like manufacturers could make our lives easier or more profitable with their games oh man like it's easy for us to sit here and be like yeah they don't do enough but i'm like what would what do i want like what are my features uh like what do i want from a manufacturer i do agree that i'll tell you the first thing i want is i do want the games first I think we should get the first run of games in that way because operators are also less critical So if you send me a game and a mech has some problems or I need to read Ben kind of a lane guide Let's put Star Wars. Use that as an example. Yeah, like the new Fate of the Empire game. Fody. I always call it Fody. When we're chopping it up in the Discord, I'm like, when everybody says put the initials, I'm like, Fody. It's so dumb. I think I'd call it Fody, too. Look at the issues that they've had with that. If that would have went to operators first, it would have been fixed way faster than what it has. Because we would have said, hey, this is getting hung up here. Would you put tape in the toilet bowl? Yeah, we ended up fixing our toilet bowl shot. The ball would spin a lot, and then on every float I've played, it ends up kind of doing like a half moon back and forth along the front edge. and then as long as it has that momentum like it won't go into the drain hole so you just kind of sit around and wait for it to happen or you got to nudge it into the hole and depending on how tight the tilt is you know you might be risking dangers or whatever and i tried everything man i was cutting standoffs and moving them up and down adding spacers and shims and sort of all all kinds of bags of tricks and then roads and i were there and we ended up getting a piece of tape like clear packing tape and folded it into a little triangle and stuck it on and now what's great is when the ball goes up the shot spins around whips around go folds right over the tape right because it's flexible ball moves just fine but then when it starts to slow down that tape that spine is up and it's just enough to knock the ball off of its you know meandering path where you're not getting any more spins anyway but it sends it towards the drain hole so it's like a night and day difference and it's basically a free fix okay but take that mech take what's called a mech we're going to call it a mech sure how many games have the toilet bowl you have taxi you have essentially diner you have a transporter you have uh white water can't forget white water creature from the black lagoon you have creature none of those games have that problem why does this you know i think that's where the operators come in is like hey this is causing a problem it's you know yeah you might have a game that lasts 30 seconds longer because of the toilet bowl shot but like at this at the end of the day it's like dude it's only 30 seconds longer because the ball was stuck in yeah it's not fun and engaging 30 seconds longer gameplay but you have the death star shot you know the reject yeah they have a fix for it but it's like you fix yours before it was even the fix was even released for that yeah because it's like because as an operator as you know it's like And I'm going to pull this thing apart and see if there's not something I can do beforehand, you know, because I'm not going to wait around for the manufacturer. Like, because honestly, here's my thing. And here's what I would like to see from manufacturers is when I reach out to tech support. It's not that I haven't gotten the stuff I need from every manufacturer eventually. But sometimes I wish I had my own line as an operator because I wish I could be like, I understand. That Stern or whoever, you know, CGC or whatever, you know, or Spooky or Barrels. I've had to deal, get parts and do tech support with all these companies. And I understand they have to do their due diligence, right? Because they're selling these games to home collectors. And these home collectors may have not ever fixed a game in their life before. But I want, when I contact a manufacturer, I'm like, dude, can we just fast track me past the bullshit part of like. But you're just, you're just in the queue. Yeah. That's all you are. Like I said, it doesn't matter. You're just another number. And I don't want to say that home collectors aren't important. They paid a lot of money for their game and whatever. They're the majority of the market, and the game should work. And when they reach out, they should have someone get back to them and help guide them through the process to get their game working again. What I am saying, though, it's way different when you're an operator and your new game is turned off at your location. because one, they're not easy to move, and two, it looks bad, and that game that you bought to be earning money is just off and not earning money. So I personally do feel like every manufacturer should take notice and give operators priority with tech support and parts support and all that kind of stuff ahead of Gen Pop, because ultimately at the end of the day, if you have to wait a few days to get a response or to get whatever from another company for a game at your house, I get that that sucks but like dude it is bad every day you have a brand new game that people are coming to you to play and that game it looks bad it's so bad and all the well all the players think is that you're just a shit head operator like you don't care and some operators are like that don't get me wrong but what we're seeing now in the modern day is like we're having a lot of operators like you or myself the only reason we're doing pinball is because we love it yeah that's literally the only reason we could be doing anything else and making more money we're doing it because we love pinball we want the pinball to play really good and you know i want my players to have a good experience and when i want to when we bring a game in i want to be like hell yeah you you know that when that game is on the floor at wedge or that game is on the floor at flip a coin that you're going to be able to go in that game's going to be running and it's going to play good how often do you have games that are turned off more than one day basically never same like if i have to go a day i'm like shit yeah what do i will drive myself crazy trying to fix that thing i mean that's kind of what that's what ends up happening right is like i'm gonna move heaven and earth to try to do whatever i can yeah and get macgyver on some stuff to make things work again like i'm not above trying to re-engineer parts on my own as an operator i think a lot of operators are that way that's always been the way you have to do it sometimes you have to do it sometimes yeah like being a good operator being a good tech is making something work in the field it's like being a medic in a war zone well this isn't perfect hospital conditions with all you know with all the support and all the perfect tools it's like now this is triage let's get out there and make this shit work with what we got i have hacked some shit together of course you know but i fixed it the right way later on even when i got the part that i needed absolutely but i have hacked some shit yeah that's okay i think it's okay i think it's better that the game plays and that the customers have no idea well it got the game playing for them yeah no i i i think fast tracking operators you know would be big for for that but i'm not saying like go go hire somebody just for operators no but just take care of us like you used to you know we don't need the change i don't know where the change happened because it's it was just briefly that even operators were like hey you know you guys are the thing and now like you don't see that anymore no and it's weird because it's like i always feel uh again i'm biased so i don't know how it comes across but when I'm reaching out to the companies, but I'm like, hey, man, like when you're sending me stuff or you're asking me, like, I'm not just like, duh, what's going on? You know, like, like I've already been through this. Yeah, I've already been through it. Like, I got it. You can be like, I have the tools. I have the know-how. If you're like, hey, have you tested this? Have you swapped this with that? Has it changed something? And we can go back and forth. So I feel like that would be easier to deal with. The issue I had on Pulp Fiction recently with the ball trough and then ball not kicking out like i reached out to cgc and they were just like well have you tried this and i'm like you had like 10 steps ago like yeah they're like well that's the recommended fix for this i was like yeah but it's that's not working like i eventually just like started messing with it and like we talked about it and i took your notes that you had yep i ended up doing what you said eliminating connectors yeah i haven't had a problem you know knock on wood for quite a few days see that's the thing is like when we operators we share knowledge with each other or lots of us you know and uh i wish we were more of the process you know what i mean i think what you're echoing and what roads i know echoes my business partner is like he's like man i buy a lot of fucking games every year and like sometimes when i have to reach out to a company doesn't feel like Like I get treated with the respect necessarily of someone that just bought $100,000 worth of games that year from a company. You know what I mean? So I get that, man. I don't know. This is my last question on the business side of it. But do you think pinball, and I talk about it on the show a lot, but do you think pinball can ever become truly and highly profitable again to run on location? and I'm not talking about just as a side hustle or as a gimmick to get people in the door to buy other stuff will it ever get to the point where like games could get put on location and this is what I mean you can buy a game for whatever it costs if it's seven eight ten twelve grand whatever the games cost is there ever a point where and I would say 18 months or less you pay that game off and then the next two or three years you can make money on it and then still sell it for some residual value like they used to do is there any do you see that in the future or do you not see that in the future oh man this hurts uh honestly no yeah i think until like it just we're both very passionate about the hobby yeah you know take the take location side out of it we're very passionate people about the hobby i think what you have is games are too much now. Not too much in the sense that they cost too much, but they're just over-designed. And maybe I don't want to use over-design, but there's codes or rules are too deep. I think rule sets have heard a lot of what is going on today because you have to make a game that plays for a 30-minute game of Godzilla or an hour-long game of Godzilla for the person buying it to feel accomplished or where the value of the game is yeah yeah yeah where back in the day i mean i know you have it i could talk inflation and everything about buying games because the cost or whatever you know but the simplicity of games like i'm just i keep using games example i'm looking at right now uh one of the games that i've been recently playing a lot is attack from mars yep is that game deep no not really yeah but why is it still a top game why is it still a game that people when we talk about going out and to play why is that still one of those games because it's easy it's fun it's simple you know it's not you don't have to be a computer programmer to play you just play the fucking thing where i think where games the newer games come out no matter what manufacturer it is i mean look at the depth of dune that thing's that thing's crazy harry potter's pretty deep for the most part it's harry potter seems deep to me as a person that's only played it about 20 times like i don't think i would see there's a lot there content in that game dnd is a whole different thing that's a whole different beast i don't play a lot of new games so what what sterns are like crazy deep jaws i haven't played jaws for a while yeah jaws pretty much jaws is considered deep i mean all the l-wing games are going to be deep You have to play so much or stack this, this, this, this, this, and this to do anything with points. And until you do all that, you're not going to do anything. So, I mean. Do you think that there's just, like, not fun? There's not enough fun early on in games? Like, regardless of skill level? Yeah, yeah, 100%. Like, you have to get through the game to start seeing the cool stuff. Where, again, we're going to use Attack from Mars. Yep. if you just keep uh hitting the saucer like what is the first one four hits and you explode it that's fucking cool oh do you see that i mean you know what i mean or you're gonna hit the left side and you're gonna get those locks you know and you're gonna start that multiball or you'll get the martians will jiggle because that's you know that can be in a random award or it can be just hitting the targets around the play field that you're not even thinking about oh yeah i agree I don't care how many times you play it. You're still there and you're like, hell yeah. Same thing with Made of Madness. Look at the castle. I mean, there's a reason those two games are so sought after still today. They're not incredibly deep, but you could sit and play them. I've been playing those games for 20 years and I'm not sick of them. No. I think that's a lot of it. I think that's what's hurting pinball currently is it's too much. We need to go back to simple times. I mean, Pulp Fiction, that game's amazing. And it's not incredibly deep. It's simple. It does well on location. I think, I don't know how it's rated overall, but it does super well on location. I don't know any operators, operator friends that have Pulp Fiction that says it doesn't do good. I think it's because it's simple. Well, and it's got a popular movie license, and it's handled well, and the sound's good, and the music's good, all that kind of stuff. But I think if we went back to a more simpler time, when I would say golden age, late 70s to mid 90s, would you say is golden age pinball? I mean, arcades were popping back then. I agree. Until we get back to that era, I don't think we're going to ever see that again. I think we're pushing longer playing games into people's basements. Location pinball is going to hurt because of that. You know, I don't want to go sit at a bar and play an hour long game with anything. I don't care what it is I don't want to play that I you know that takes away from everything else that I'm doing and do you think that there's anything that can be done with with that as far as like I feel exactly the same way like you can you will not no way am I playing multiplayer modern games with people no way am I doing that absolutely not it doesn't mean that I I don't like some of them or I can't get into it although it there is still a hard limit like when I say to me a long playing game is 10 to 20 minutes that feels long to me if i have a game that i play even solo and i break a 20 or 30 minute game on it one time i don't want to play it no more ever i will yeah like ever play it more i did that test on godzilla a few weeks ago and i had people coming up to me like they're like dude you don't you don't ever play godzilla what are you doing i'm like i'm doing a test leave me alone i hit like a 15 minute game i haven't played that game since Like I played it because I had to fix something, but that was it. Like I don't want to play it. It was too much. It was too long. I think we need to get back to simple simplicity of games. And you think that would help the feasibility of pinball location? You think it would make more people interested in the games? Yeah, I think these new games are too hard for the common casual player. Interesting. I think you would see more growth. I mean licensing too. Like everybody's about licensing and themes and all this other stuff. What we want, you're never going to see again, but you release Taylor Swift or something like that. You're not going to bring new players in because of it. You're just going to have a few casuals pop in and see it. Harry Potter is a perfect example of that. It's not growing pinball. It hasn't done anything besides people see it once or twice, they play it, and then they never play again. Because they're doing it's doing the thing that it's supposed to do, which is people that haven't played pinball. Well, it's obviously doing the crossover where it's like people that grew up with Harry Potter and like pinball are very excited. So they play it a lot. Yes. Then there is the people that don't play pinball at all. But this theme is something they love. So they're like, oh, there's that thing I love. It a pinball machine I guess we go out and try it So that also good but it only so good if those players not only go up and play it but then come back and go oh let play it again oh maybe pinball kind of fun and that's what you're saying you don't think it does no i think when you go like you could go up to a casual player and after they got done playing harry potter and say what do you think they're like i have no idea what i was doing i'm just hitting the ball like that's that's where the disconnect is oh well i have to do this to do this okay i put that that together you don't just do those two things you have to do five things to do that you know what i think too is like i think that there's too much stacking in modern games oh it's too much there's too much overlap of stuff going on at the same time versus like older games used to for better for worse lock you out of progress towards shit barrels kind of does that too you know to a certain extent they'll lock you out of something i mean string does it too everybody's doing it yeah but we need i think it's we're just it's too much we need to get back to whitewater let's start a mode yeah let's hit this ramp hit this other ramp you're into a thing okay let's collect rafts and next thing you know and use inserts on the play field to show that you're progressing something right yeah but it's we have we have way too much stuff and it's because it's all i think a lot of it is afterthought oh oh shit, we should have added this to the code instead. We should, you know, when you're releasing codes that are half-baked, I mean, X-Men's a perfect example of that. You know, X-Men's an amazing shooter, but it was so half-baked that it's ridiculous. Do you think, though, that they could make games simpler and at the same time not alienate their home buyer base? No. So we're basically, we're just kind of stuck in this situation. I think you should, I think, like we said before, sell to the operators. Give them a grace period of, let's say, one or two months before. Get those games out there. But then you're going to have people like, oh, I played and played it. It's not that good. You know, it's just, it's the world we live in today. Yeah, yeah. You know, if you want to bring pinball back, just be passionate. Push it as hard as you can. You know, try to get, say, one to five players new a year into it. and hope for the best. I mean, that's how I feel like doing it too. It's the ugly truth. It's so grassroots, and it takes so much effort to convert one new player. It takes so much work. And not only is it that you need the games, you need them to be on location, you need them to be accessible, you want them to work, then it's also like you can have all the perfect setup, and you could have every game ever made in perfect condition, and you'll still have people that come in, and i don't even know what the conversion rate is like way less than one percent of people that play a pinball machine walk away and go oh that was fun i want to do that again and then come back next week or or whatever or seek out pinball like it is a very small conversion rate compared to everything else yep you're not much of a tournament player like i love tournaments i love the competitive aspect but i like that it's the face-to-face interaction type thing yeah with that also having people come in like a casual player you they come in for the first time and they play a game and they're like oh you know like i think we talked about this on the last podcast that we did and you see them and they kind of look like they're like i don't know if i want to play this and then they play it and they're like okay that was kind of cool so they'll play it again And I'm not saying growth is getting people to play tournaments, but casual growth is also amazing, too. You know, how many times do you see in your spot casual players that you see once they've like, you know, very, very green to the old pinball thing. But then you see them over and over again. I'm not saying like every week, but like maybe once a month and then or once every couple of months, then they start coming in a little bit more often. But they got hooked. How often do you see that? I mean, we see it. I always, you know, we get lots of new players in. I just think about it like, you know, Portland's a huge town and we have a ton of pinball everywhere, dude, and all types of pinball. Right. So, you know, I hear about this sometimes being discussed. They're like, oh, well, there's no pinball near me or the only pinball near me is two broken. There's like a CSI and then there's a certain avatar and they don't work and they haven't been cleaned or whatever. And those are the two games and they're 30 minute drive for me. And there's no other pinball. And then people go, well, yeah, you know, like pinball needs to be places for people to play it, for it to grow. And I was like, obviously I agree with that. But then I look at a place like Portland, I go, okay, we have 1300 games on location in the Portland metro area. There's 2.5 million people in the metro area. How many people do I think play pinball say once a month anywhere, you know, just like play pinball a regular player um i don't know less than 5 000 probably less than 3 000 probably less than 2 000 realistically you know okay well those aren't great numbers you know what i mean yeah so and the access isn't an issue but there's something going on man like because pinball used to be big and it's not big and it's it's having this somewhat resurgence but it's a i feel like it's hard not to look at it like it still feels tepid to me it still feels like when when niche hobby people hear that you like you play pinball like what do you do for your on your spare time you know i play pinball they're like you you fucking nerd yeah you know they're like motherfucker you were just at a cosplay thing like yeah totally you know what i mean when the niche hobby people think that what you do is stupid like that's not a good i don't know what do you what do you think how do you think we should like what do you think needs to happen or do you think we'll ever see it back or i don't know if well i don't think we'll ever see it to the popularity that it was in the late 70s for sure i'm on my optimistic days i go it could be as big as it was in the early 90s i think it could be that big again now on my pessimistic days i go not at this rate just like what you were saying where i'm like i don't know if the games i think the biggest growth market is location because even the home collectors, like one, the games are expensive. Even the guys that buy the games for their house, even if they have the money, they run out of space. So they either run out of money or they run out of space. And it's even harder to mint those people than it is because they, one, have to be a pinball player. And then, two, they have to have the disposable income to spend tens of thousands of dollars on these machines to put them in their house. So even though that's the majority of their market right now, the market overall is smaller in units, manufactured and sold than it was in the early 90s 30 years ago and the only way for that to grow bigger is for them to for locations to be growing and for operators to be buying more games because operators will always buy games to keep their lineups fresh right and and expand their routes if they're doing well and operators don't look at games like oh i don't like star wars or i don't like dungeons and dragons they look at and go fuck it we ball dude let's buy it i'll put it somewhere i don't care if i like stranger things or not it doesn't matter right but home collectors are like you didn't make the game the movie from the 80s that i wanted you made a different movie from the 80s that i wanted you know what i mean like yeah so i think that the growth potential is absolutely on location but we need to get games that will do well on location and i'm not sure that because i feel like the people driving the bus are the home buyers that i don't know if we're going to get that do you think things like harry potter and the rumored pokemon i think those are great i think those are great it'll change do you think it will get new players i hope so i just don't know if it'll make like a sea change you know what i mean like i think because we already have we already have titles like that we already have star wars is like that star wars is massive timeless it's a timeless yeah so it's like okay cool we're getting harry potter cool i think pokemon is going to be great for that and for like visibility but like you know are we pretending like star wars doesn't already exist you know what i mean like it's not that we haven't gotten big massive themes or licenses before and has it meaningfully increased the player base i don't know i mean we've we've had licenses throughout i mean look at you have a dolly parton or dolly yep you you we've had themes but we've had things mixed in with that you know up until recently but ultimately the game has to be fun like i think themes gameplay i think the Placeless themes are helpful to draw a player's first attention, just like you were saying with your Harry Potter. But it's like, that's great. But if the player doesn't walk away going, man, that was fun. I had fun doing this activity. I want to do this activity again. Then it's only to support the current people. You know, it's only to support us as already exist in the hobby. and we don't view things the same way that a casual person who doesn't play pinball walking up to a machine the first time use it like a casual person doesn't understand that they can play a two-player game a casual person doesn't understand what the button on top of the ape you know the lockdown bar does hell dude i don't even understand it sometimes right well that's what i'm saying is you're at the point where it's like we don't view that kind of stuff those pain points we don't view them as pain points because we're into the hobby so we're like oh duh you got to put the credits in you got to hit the button twice you know on dnd you know you hit it once and it does this you hit it you hit it and hold it down and it does that you know like that is lost on new players but it's like i just want to say like i hate to end any show on a negative bet so i want us to talk about just a couple of reasons why we're thankful for modern pinball as both players and operators. I'll start with mine. I am thankful that we're getting new games because it obviously creates excitement, but it also keeps the prices of the classics reasonable because they would become astronomically expensive to buy. We've already seen that. We've already seen that. And I like that it creates just new buzz for the hobby because even us, you know, it's like as much as we love the old games, we're still like hey man barrels is coming out with a new game or stern or jjp or whoever it's like it gives us all something in the hobby to talk about and to go play like so i'm grateful for that i am grateful that i've been playing pinball for 20 years and you know there was a time when i first started playing that didn't seem like it was gonna make it so i'm grateful that's still around and that we still get new games and every once in a while i get a game i love so i'm thankful for that yeah i i agree 100 with all that um you know very thankful that it's still going even if we aren't always a fan of everything you know it's still it's still stuff coming out you know people are putting their blood sweat and tears into putting a new game out for us to criticize and enjoy you know yeah yeah i mean the fact that we're still going like when you talk to people you know being a location owner people are like wow they still make these like yeah man this shit's still going like we're still we are still going strong you know are we getting you know i did some research before we recorded about games like there's a point in time where we were getting like a game run was only like four months and then we'd get a new game four months and then that game was done like no more production and we'd get a new game and that was just one game you know multiple games per manufacturer you know how many different manufacturers were there but times change but we're still here we're still going and that's you know you you have to be thankful for that progression is always a good thing yeah there's interesting ideas being done in modern pinball there oh there's some cool s max yeah there's cool max and there's cool rule sets and some people really really like those things i personally don't like the runtime of these in general but yeah i mean it's i have plenty of friends that do i you know like alex the water boy he loves modern games yeah so but so everybody has different flavors yes that's why that's why we have flavors you know look at like you were talking cool mechs look at that new mech that's on kong sweepable drop targets the first time it's ever been come on first featured mech that's my that's my absolute favorite but no i mean look at the the sandworm oh man yeah that mech is cool as hell if you put that back in the day i mean like look at let's go think adam's family thing like when that when the when the hand grabs the ball that's some wild shit you know it still is like you still see people like whole do you see that hand come out but then you have like the stuff like the sandworm dude that mechs wild yeah it's very impressive It's cool as hell. I mean, D&D, the dragon, when it spits the balls back at you, is it a very intricate mech? No, but it's cool as hell. Yeah, that's fucking cool. The premium is pretty fucking cool. No, it is. How it spits the balls at you. I know Jurassic Park, was it Data East that picked the ball up? Yeah, picked the ball up and ate it. I know you had that, but look at the new one. That shit, it's pretty fucking cool. No, the premium Jurassic Park where the T-Rex sees the ball is cool as hell. Just the technology we're seeing is, you know, you've got to be thankful for that alone. I want to thank you, AJ, for coming on another episode and filling in short notice Waterboy there as he is out sick. But for anyone listening, we want to encourage you, as always, the message of the show, no matter who my guest host is, is to go out and play some pinball on location, support your local operators, play some new games that they paid and put out there for you to play go seek it out and play pinball and play pinball with others introduce others in your life to pinball if you care about the game and you want to see it in the future it only exists because passionate people work at the companies making these games passionate people are operating games and opening up locations for you to go play at because these games are expensive so the best way to play as always is on location. So I want you to go out and do that. And until next time, good luck. Don't suck. That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight. Losing my religion. Trying to keep up with you And I don't know if I can do it Oh no, I've said too much I haven't said enough I thought that I heard you laughing I thought that I heard you sing I think I thought I saw you try